pontic
#552 – Kyma Thalassa
Born 80 BC in Sinope, Kyma lives a simple life as the proprietor of a bait and tackle shop on the Black Sea, when she’s not following her rock star lover, Stevie Stratonice, on an interdimensional concert tour.
RomanPunks is a retrofuturistic, cyberpunk derivative world-building project inspired by fine art, history and the cryptopunk movement.
A total of 1,000 RomanPunk characters have been frozen in time and minted as Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum, WAX, Polygon and Algorand blockchains.
RomanPunk characters are comprised of commoners and famous individuals based on Roman history, art history and pop culture.
The basis for RomanPunk lore and backstories is exhaustively researched by history/sci-fi buff and co-founder, Punktavian.
All images are drawn by hand by woman artist and co-founder, Cleopunktra, without the aid of AI or generative tools.
RomanPunks came into existence through early minting on OpenSea, promoting on Twitter and building a Discord community through giveaways and engagement. The idea of a cyberpunk-derivative ‘RomanPunk’ theme was in our heads for years, but it was the success of the Cryptopunks that became the catalyst for project conception and launch.
After a hard working first 60 days spent networking and attracting new collectors to RomanPunks, our community had begun to flourish and sales increased. We began to offer our collectors an opportunity to battle their NFTs in a tournament bracket powered by dice rolls.
Encouraged by the tight knit community and the carbon-neutral blockchain with lightning fast and low cost transactions, we launched 'romanpunksio' collection on WAX Blockchain as the first step to expand the backstories of our RomanPunk characters and the baseline for future development of a card game.
RomanPunks integrated with Chainlink Labs to utilize VRF (Verified Randomness Function) to host a giveaway raffle for our holders. We developed a smart contract on Ethereum which guarantees true random number selection on chain and can be used for a wide range of functions that require random selection.
After much anticipation in the community, we released our first WAX NFT card 'pack' through the Neftyblocks platform, which sold out in less than a week.
We launched our Twitch channel and begun building an audience by offering numerous giveaways of WAX NFTs from our collection, as well as giving participants a chance to win RomanPunk ETH NFT airdrops for taking top spot at the end of the 'season'.
As firm believers in a metaverse future and land owners in The Sandbox, we undertook to build the RomanPunk Colosseum on 1x1 land and entered our experience "Gladiator Bloodsport" into a GameJam contest. We will continue to build the Colosseum into a PVP arena and social hub once The Sandbox offers creators the ability to do so.
Thanks to the user friendly tools offered by NeftyBlocks, we launched a comprehensive blending system on WAX, allowing our collectors to blend the common NFTs they earn in our Discord RPG up into Legendary famous NFTs through the use of blending 'coins' that can also be earned on the Discord as reward for helping to promote the RomanPunks project.
We launched the VX collection on Polygon. Each owner of an ETH NFT gets their voxel equivalent airdropped to them, and these NFTs can be redeemed for official NFTs on The Sandbox Marketplace once available.
All 1,000 original, unique 1:1 RomanPunk characters hand drawn by Cleopunktra and minted on OpenSea.
The RomanPunk WAX NFT Trading Card Fighter Pack Series II consists of 3 NFTs randomly selected from over 236 characters.
Upcoming plans for RomanPunks include:
Below is a comprehensive and searchable directory of all 1,000 RomanPunk Characters.
Born 80 BC in Sinope, Kyma lives a simple life as the proprietor of a bait and tackle shop on the Black Sea, when she’s not following her rock star lover, Stevie Stratonice, on an interdimensional concert tour.
Born in 2169 AD in Syracusae, Zino was a logistics officer in Rome’s hellacious campaign against the Dacian vampire scourge. Now a pencil-necked attorney and accountant for the profligate Governor Mazar, Zino finds himself torn between helping his old comrades uncover the grisly murder of a cyborg pleasurebot and maintaining his precarious position in the baroque society of Neo-Carthage. The stakes are even higher as suspicions point towards his employer, forcing Zino to navigate a perilous path where loyalty and self-preservation are constantly at odds.
Born 25 BC in Tavium, Nyssa is a skilled seamstress and reveled in creating elaborate costumes for herself and others to wear at masked soirees. She was known for her ethereal beauty and her ability to transform into any character – past, present or future.
Born 297 BC in Teotihuacan, Xoco, priestess at the Pyramid of the Sun, mistakenly opened and fell into an interdimensional portal while conducting a human sacrifice where she became enslaved as a gladiator in a 2nd century AD Mexico that is part of the Roman Empire.
Born 555 BC in Babylon, Saba is the granddaughter of Nebuchadnezzar II and a Haitian dimension hopping raver from the 25th century AD who founded Elektrosar, an interdimensional electronica festival held in the Hanging Gardens. Saba travels through space and time to recruit new performers and audiences for the galaxy’s greatest EDM festival.
Born 2103 AD in Neo-Galway, Saoirse is an interdimensionally famous metaverse model, actress and notorious recluse who is known to send AI robot clones of herself to IRL social events while she dwells in her digital domain.
Born in 106 AD in Tarraco, Spain, Gertrudis was a soldier in the fabled legion of vampire hunters who traveled through dimensional portals seeking to destroy the antediluvian scourge across space and time.
Born 2141 AD in Neo-Carthage, Zorin serves as the cunning vizier to the city’s governor, a corrupt puppet of the Roman Empire suzerain. A lover of vanity, gladiatorial combat and a master of subterfuge with a network of spies, he wields a rare tool, the Septivox, granting him insight into alternate dimensions. Meanwhile, beneath the city’s opulent surface, a cloned Hannibal Barca leads an underground rebellion, poised to dismantle the governor’s fragile rule, propped up by deceit and manipulation.
Born 99 AD in Gordium, Midas is a magician who dazzled Rome with time-weaving illusions that he learned after stepping through an interdimensional portal to the 20th century AD. His final illusion to bury Emperor Commodus alive became fatal when the Praetorian Guard intervened, turning trick into true entombment.
Born 321 AD in Sirmium, Gisel was a lover of a young Constantius II who refused to publicly acknowledge her existence. In a jealous rage, she learned the art of war, joining the forces of Magnentius. After losing in the Battle of Mursa, Gisel was enslaved as a gladiator in the emperor’s stable.
Born 95 BC in Perinthus, Leo fought alongside Spartacus before being captured and forced into gladiatorial combat. Renowned for slaying the most zombies in a single bout, his moment of greatest triumph was interrupted when his consciousness was ‘freejacked’ by time-traffickers to 23rd century AD Britannia. Now, he battles in a cloned body for the Interdimensional Cybergladiator League (ICL), as part of the AlgoSaxons, a squad sponsored by the Algorand Foundation.
Born in 2145 AD on the red planet Mars, Rathien is a hot-tempered, relentless enforcer for cloned Hannibal Barca’s rebellion in Neo-Carthage. Freed from hard space labour, he hides from facial recognition drones while executing sabotage and assassinations against the corrupt governor Mordax Mazar and his cronies. Known for his mercenary tactics and short temper, Rathien’s methods frequently cause problems, but his loyalty and determination make him an indispensable, albeit troublesome, asset to the cause.
Born 125 AD in Ostia, Axilius was a galley slave whose ship sunk into an interdimensional whirlpool portal during a fierce storm. Transported to a 1980s AD parallel universe, he reigns as the charismatic lead singer of the thrash metal band, Pontifex Maximus. His music, a defiant cry against the elite, echoes through space time, making him an interdimensional icon of rebellion.
Born 2185 AD in Corduba, Xylo is an interdimensional RTS gaming prodigy and former techno-slave who hacked his way to freedom. Cocky and self-absorbed, Xylo lived only for the thrill of the game until a rebellion led by a cloned Hannibal Barca tried to recruit him in the fight against the cyborg Emperor Caligula. Not wanting to jeopardize his lucrative career, he refused, until a scandal contrived by a corrupt governor shattered his reputation. Now, with nothing left to lose, Xylo reluctantly joins the fight, piloting a Xena-class mech in the battle for Neo-Carthage. Xylo plays by his own rules, driven less by loyalty than by the thrill of proving that the system is his to control—and burn.
Born 181 AD in Adrianople, Groucho is a stand-up comedian and estranged brother of Emperor Maximinus who travels interdimensionally to lampoon political leaders in the public forum, only to disappear through a portal before he can be arrested.
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